Year's end, file size an issue?

[Mike or Penny Novack]

Jeff

> ?
>
> If I close my books on 12/31, then any report I run for last year has 
> the year-end roll-up transactions included. Hmmm, in December, I go 
> from 11 months' accumulated in Income:Salary to zero on the 31st. So 
> my income for the month of December is a big negative number?
>
> It isn't any better if I do the roll-up on 1/1 because, although last 
> year's books "work out" right for reporting on last year, I've got the 
> same kind of mess for this year. I don't know any way to easily post 
> transactions on "December 32nd" or "Triskellber 1st" or the like so 
> that the old "new page of the journal" idea works nicely in the 
> electronic age. Maybe I'm missing a reporting flag somewhere; I'm far 
> from a GNUCash expert. Who knows, I might just keep a locked backup of 
> the books before roll-up around for reporting.

Jeff is describing a problem that is sometimes solved by having a "day 
that is not a real date" which falls after the last fiscal day of one 
year and before the first fiscal date of the next. But when the fiscal 
year coincides with the calendar year easy to use January 1st as the 
date and simply declare that is a date not inside a fiscal year for your 
enterprise.

That's the solution which I use. The organization's books are open for 
transactions up to and including Dec 31st. The books are closed with 
transactions as of Jan 1st. The next year's transactions begin as of Jan 
2nd. In other words, I am using Jan 1st as the date "not in any year". 
Since banks and the stock market aren't open on Jan 1st, no problem. But 
for those using a different fiscal year that does not have a holiday 
they can use "in between" that won't work.

Jeff, that does not result in the next year's Income Statement getting 
messed up (just use Jan 2nd as the start date; Dec 31st as the end date)

Michael